Obama’s State of the Union climate call may buy time for EPA

President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday night further raised hopes that he is prepared to take action on climate change — but probably not right away.

Instead, the president put most of the onus on an all-but-paralyzed Congress, with the threat that if lawmakers don’t act, Obama will order agencies across his administration to come up with ways to address global warming “for the sake of our children and our future.”

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State of the Union 2013: POLITICO LIVE reaction analysis

State of the Union 2013: Obama's speech

Obama offered no details on those potential actions and didn’t even mention the EPA, whose regulations on power plants and other greenhouse gas sources will almost surely be at the forefront of his climate agenda.

Still, it was a strong enough call to action to appease most climate advocates, even those who had said in the days leading up to the speech that they wanted Obama to lay out a detailed plan of attack.

“It’s not that explicit. But it almost is,” said Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. He predicted that when Obama asks his Cabinet agencies for a climate strategy, “what EPA is going to say back is you can implement the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon pollution from power plants and other major industrial sources. And that’s basically what the environmental community has been asking for.”

Other greens were disappointed not to hear more, however — for example, on whether Obama plans to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a Canada-to-Texas project that has drawn laser fire from climate activists.

“While we are excited to hear the president connect the dots between climate change and increasingly severe weather, accurately explaining the problem is not nearly enough,” said the climate activist group Forecast the Facts. “Tonight, President Obama set the lowest possible bar for action. … In fact, he pledged no specific actions at all.”

EPA is already preparing to act, however — even if Obama didn’t mention it Tuesday night. The agency has proposed regulations that would restrict greenhouse gas pollution from new power plants, and is widely expected to follow with rules on existing plants. Both steps, especially the second one, would have a big impact on the future of coal-fired power in the U.S.

Rich Gold, a former aide to Clinton EPA Administrator Carol Browner, said Obama is smart to give deference to lawmakers in the short term, knowing that the rulemaking process will take a while.

“It’s a parallel track,” said Gold, now a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight. “All of this stuff is going to take time to move it. And so you’re basically saying, ‘Congress, go ahead and have at it as you’ve done in a bipartisan way in the past.’”

Some of Obama’s supporters in Congress lauded his approach in the hours before the speech, saying he doesn’t need any further permission from the Hill to take on the issue. They point out that under a series of court rulings, the EPA has huge power to clamp down on greenhouse gases.

“All we need is for the EPA to continue to do what they must do to contain carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. Boxer added, “If he carries out the law, we’re going to do what we have to do.”

She said it would be fine if Obama didn’t give a specific shout-out to EPA in his big speech.